Help Needed with Friend Making
A part of my work as a member of the Oregon-Idaho Cabinet is to work with the Common Table Project through Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. I want to share with you some of that work, and to ask your help with it.
On Sunday June 2nd I co-authored an Op-Ed in The Oregonian titled “An antidote to hate crimes is deliberate ‘friend-making.’” You can read it here. As you will see, this is a faith-based movement to bridge the increasingly toxic political divide of our times by finding common ground at a common table. But we’re starting with a little research, and to this end we could use your help. We know that feeding the hungry and housing the houseless are two basic values shared by most all people of faith, and we’re interested in mapping out the full impact of faith communities responding to these basic needs throughout Oregon..
If your community is engaged in responding to food or housing insecurity, we would like to know about it. Please take some time to fill out our hunger & housing questionnaire here, or email us at commontable@emoregon.org. Likewise, if you know of other faith-based initiatives attempting to address these core needs, we hope you will forward this invitation to them.
As our faith-impact map grows, we hope to use it to learn more about each other, work alongside each other, and deepen our sense of community throughout the state. As we said in that Op-Ed, we're not so naïve as to think this small step will heal every hurt between us, but in an era of growing division, strife and polarization, we know this is a step in the right direction. The spiritual path of friend-making isn’t flashy, and it seldom makes the news, but we believe it is the only path that can carry us forward as a society, and we hope that you will join us in walking it together. For more information about the Common Table, check out our website www.commontableorgeon.org.